Tag Archives: salvation

I am convinced that we take the wonder and peculiarity of the Christian story for granted. Our ancient forebears, not weighed down with sappy sentimentality or rationalistic reductionism, knew better. I came across the following quote by St. Cyril of Jerusalem while researching a sermon and I thought it was too good not to share. This is from his catechetical lectures on the sacraments:

“O strange and inconceivable thing! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised again; but our imitation was in a figure, and our salvation in reality. Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again; and all these things He has freely bestowed upon us, that we, sharing His sufferings by imitation, might gain salvation in reality. O surpassing loving-kindness! Christ received nails in His undefiled hands and feet, and suffered anguish; while on me without pain or toil by the fellowship of His suffering He freely bestows salvation.”

St. Cyril contrasts the visceral reality of the cross and resurrection experienced by Christ with that which is symbolized and beautifully enacted in baptism. What is inconceivable – if you’ll pardon the Princess Bride reference – is that all that Christ won in his conquest of death by death is ours without the torment he willingly embraced. Through the confession of the true faith and baptism in the Triune name, we come to know “the fellowship of His suffering” and salvation is bestowed as a free gift.

Let us never lose sight of the strangeness of the gospel, and how – inconceivably – God has condescended to us in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit for our redemption.

What does it look like to share in “the fellowship” of Christ’s suffering? How does your baptism inform your daily walk with God? Leave a comment or question below!

Like this:

We often speak of salvation as if it is only an event in the past. A robust, Biblical look at salvation reveals something much more wonderful, though. Tom Oden points this out in his massive systematic theology Classic Christianity:

“There are three tenses in the vocabulary of salvation: We have been saved from the penalty of sin for our justification. We are being saved from the power of sin for our sanctification. We will be saved from the remnants of sin for God’s glorification. Salvation includes the whole range of divine activity on behalf of humanity in past, present, and future history.” (Oden, 566.)

The Bible speaks of these tenses in many places, of course, but as Oden points out sometimes it speaks of all three at once. Note, for instance, all three tenses in Titus 2:11-13 (NRSV):

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly,while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior,Jesus Christ.”

Salvation is not only something that we once received at the altar years ago, or a hope we can only look forward to. Salvation is past, it is present, and it is yet to come. Thanks be to God.

“Just” forgiven? Shockingly, good soteriology is hard to do in 5 words.

“Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” says a popular evangelical bumper sticker. My grandpappy in the faith, John Wesley, would disagree – as would many other Christians who think salvation is not less, but certainly more than, justification. But is the perfection that is a gift of God’s grace one address, or a street with many different addresses?

Wesley famously defended his unique (among Protestants of the time) doctrine in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. He quotes one of his brother Charles’ hymns to show that they had believed and taught perfection from the beginning of their ministry:

Safe in the way of life, above
Death, earth, and hell we rise;
We find, when perfected in love,
Our long-sought paradise.

O that I now the rest might know,
Believe, and enter in!
Now, Saviour, now the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin!

If we back-pedal many centuries, though, we find that what Wesley rediscovered for Protestants was something present quite early in the Christian tradition. John Cassian, a great influence on Benedict and his Rule, spends a chapter in his famous Conferences discussing perfection. He records the following from a conversation with Chaeremon, an Egyptian anchorite:

“Scripture summons our free will to different degrees of perfection, and this in proportion to the condition and the measure of the individual soul. It was not at all possible to propose to all together the same crown of perfection, since everyone does not have the same virtue, the same disposition of will, or the same zeal. Hence the Word of God lays down the different degrees and the different measures of perfection.”

He quotes a variety of Scriptures to back up this claim, including Psalms ascribing blessedness for a host of different virtues, and 1 Cor. 15:41-42, “Star differs from star in brightness. And so it is with the resurrection of the dead.” Chaeremon adds,

“So you see, then, that there are different grades of perfection and that from some high points the Lord summons us to go higher. Someone blessed and perfect in the fear of God will walk, as is written, ‘from virtue to virtue’ (Ps. 83:8), from perfection to some other perfection. That is, with eager spirit he will rise up from fear to hope, and then he will be invited to a holier state, that of love. He who was ‘the faithful and prudent servant’ (Mt. 24:25) will pass to the relationship of a friend and the adopted condition of sons.” (Conferences, 11.12)

In a sense, this is where Cassian and Wesley finally meet on Christian Perfection: love. Earlier in Conference 11, Chaeremon notes that three things keep us from sin: fear of punishment, hope of the Kingdom, and love. He then goes on to describe lesser and greater perfections in terms of this sequence: “We should strive to rise from fear to hope and from hope to love of God and of virtue.” (11.7)

For Wesley, the perfection that is possible for the Christian to attain, with God’s abiding presence and gracious gift, is always a perfection “in love.” It is not a complete freedom from temptation or fault, but a transformation of “tempers,” a habit of the soul which has been so marked by the Spirit that it is completely filled with love for God and neighbor.

Christian perfection, for John and the early Methodists, was only a possibility for a long-time saint, probably near death. Later Wesleyans would distort what he took to be a long process into an instantaneous gift, of course. But the early Fathers and Mothers would agree with Wesley that virtue and holiness are not quickly obtained.

So are there a variety of perfections open to the Christian, or just one? Cassian opens up the possibility that perfection is not merely a single destination, but several along the way to that final glorification for which we long – when we at last can behold the blessedness of God, not in a mirror, darkly but in full and magnificent splendor. Like John Climacus – and, much later, John Wesley – Cassian reminds us that complete salvation is not achieved in an instant, but given by the grace of God over a long, grace-imbued road.

None of this is to our credit (this is worth repeating at the end because we Wesleyans are often accused of Pelagianism), but rather as Charles Wesley reminds us again, our boast is in the goodness and mercy of God:

Then let us make our boast
of his redeeming power,
which saves us to the uttermost,
till we can sin no more.

Minus bathroom breaks, I read Love Wins in one sitting. I wouldn’t say this is because it is engrossing, but rather because the 200 pages is made up of such short, choppy sentences and large print that it reads more like 100 pages. Compare this, for instance, to the considerably shorter, but much more difficult Nature of Doctrine. Lindbeck’s classic was one of the densest tomes I’ve read; Bell, while a good read, feels unnaturally inflated to me. But I suppose no one would be willing to part with $20+ for a hundred page hardback.

That said, I liked the book. I didn’t find anything I really disagreed with in the book (it’s hard to disagree with something that is chock-full of questions, though). A few main points:

1) Bell is not saying anything new. He’s upfront about this. These issues have been wrestled with since the origin of the faith. Why is this book so controversial, then? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. Resurgent Calvinism, so common in low-church Protestantism today, will despise this book. Anyone who likes to draw really clear and easy distinctions about the saved and the damned will not be happy with his reflections. Many of these folks didn’t like Bell to start with, as evidenced by the fact that he was being condemned as a universalist before the book was even released. I find it laughable that churches who subscribe to no official creeds, no Magisterium (an official compendium of teaching, like in the Roman Catholic faith), who lack any formal denomination or structure from which to excommunicate someone have still attempted to erase Bell’s name from the evangelicals’ Book of Life. Perhaps such folks are not so Protestant as they imagine themselves to be.

2) Bell has an astounding gift for communication. He is, no doubt, a smart guy, but that’s not what makes his work so impressive. His gift is communicating complicated ideas in ways that are engaging and attractive. I got to see him speak at Duke last year and I was floored. As a pastor, watching him made me feel like I was watching Mickey Mantle while I was still stuck learning t-ball. This is not a book that should be evaluated as if it were systematic theology; it’s not. It’s a book of meditations and questions, none of which are original. He is no Luther or Barth; he’s not dropping a theological bomb. He’s restating some old questions for a new generation in a way that is profoundly helpful.

3) This is solid, practical, and whimsical theology. At various points I laughed out loud and was tempted to cry. He goes between exegesis, stories, poetry, and theology with the nimbleness of a ballerina. If you haven’t read much in the areas of soteriology, the question of other religions, or the nature and scope of Christ’s grace, you may find a lot here that is difficult. For instance, the Bible knows nothing of oft-repeated concepts such as “the age of accountability” and a “personal relationship with Jesus.” Bell may well burst your bubble – but you’ll thank him for it.

A couple of critiques, for good measure:

Given the actual density of the book, I think it’s fair to say it is overpriced (at least if you pay full price for it). The total page count is, frankly, bloated beyond necessity.

He doesn’t cite his sources. There is a brief list of acknowledgments at the end, which is helpful. To his credit, he lists N.T. Wright (probably enough reason, right there, to earn the disdain of the John Piper fanboys). His view is heavily influenced by C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, which he does mention. But there is a lot that isn’t credited. At one point, for instance, he references “gospels of sin management,” which I’m pretty sure is a direct allusion to a chapter in Dallas Willard’s wonderful The Divine Conspiracy. But no reference is made of Willard or the book, even in the acknowledgments. I have heard it said that source citations scare publishers because they scare away potential readers, so perhaps this was not Bell’s choice.

Read this. Share it with friends, especially friends who have been exposed to a Jesus that doesn’t look anything like the Jesus of the gospels. I wish this book had been available to me when I was journeying from fundamentalism to Jesus; it would have been profoundly helpful. As is, it was a fun read, something I heartily recommend, and something I will use as a reference and source for inspiration.

If you like it, do yourself a favor: read The Great Divorce. If you are really feeling froggy, go on to read Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s Dare We Hope?, which asked these exact questions, in a more direct and controversial way, decades ago. I personally found C.S. Lewis and Balthasar much more engaging, but Love Wins is a much easier read than these and a great introduction to the notion that maybe – just maybe – God gets what God wants…everybody.

Hoping to finish up Dare We Hope? from the great Catholic theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar tonight. I first encountered his ideas in seminary, and a recent bible study on the Revelation of John inspired me to finally take this off the shelf. The question guiding the Swiss Catholic’s tome is a daunting one: from the Biblical and other evidence, do we have any grounds to hope (not claim!) that all might be saved? Citing the RC Catechism, he points out that official dogma has never held that anyone is absolutely in hell right now. Might it be that, as so many biblical texts imply (or claim directly), Jesus might achieve his stated goal of “drawing all men” to himself?

For anyone who has struggled with the question of salvation, particularly its scope, Von Balthasar is a welcome read. Far from liberal claims that God would “surely” not damn anyone (because God, like liberal theologians, views all judgments as passe’), Dare We Hope insists in on nothing more than the what the title suggests: if we truly love our neighbors and wish for them their highest good, we can, and should, dare to hope that they will be saved…as well as ourselves.

I leave you with a succinct statement, from his Short Discourse On Hell (attached to Dare We Hope? as a response to his critics):

The question, to which no final answer is given or can be given is this: Will he who refuses [salvation] now refuse it to the last? To this there are two possible answers: the first says simply “Yes”…the second says: I do not know, but I think it permissible to hope (on the basis of…Scripture) that the light of divine love will ultimately be able to penetrate every human darkness and refusal. (Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved” with A Short Discourse On Hell [San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1988], 178)